President Joe Biden’s national security agenda for his first 100 days in office was shaped by the COVID-19 crisis and a pledge to advance foreign policy to benefit working people. But the administration’s next actions on countries such as China could include new actions stemming from human rights abuses, the White House said.
Where Trump and Obama officials prioritized terrorist threats and a great power competition, Biden faced economic and health crises stemming from the coronavirus’s spread inside the country, climate change, and a “technological revolution” that has reordered people’s lives, a senior administration official said in a phone call with reporters.
“Our view is that we don’t have that luxury to choose between those challenges. It was clear from the first 100 days that we face an increasingly assertive China and disruptive Russia,” the official said. “At the same time, we face challenges that don’t respect borders, including climate change, COVID-19, and a technological revolution that is reshaping nearly every aspect of our lives.”
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Key to this COVID-19 recovery strategy was the administration’s $1.7 trillion coronavirus package, the White House said Tuesday. In an unusual move, Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, also instructed the National Security Council to help the White House pass the bill.
When the American Rescue Plan became law, Sullivan “felt as much ownership and was excited as anyone,” Sullivan’s chief of staff, Yohannes Abraham, told Foreign Policy.
Biden’s focus on a foreign policy for the middle class, a slogan of his campaign, is rooted in the idea that winning a power struggle with China will require fortifying people at home.
“Everything we do in our foreign policy and national security will be measured by a basic metric: Is it going to make life better, safer and easier for working families?” Sullivan has explained.
In a speech at the State Department shortly after taking office, Biden stressed a similar point.
“Every action we take,” Biden said, “we must take with American working families in mind.”
But orbiting the focus on middle-class America is a China policy flank that spans the origins of the coronavirus, trade, human rights abuses in Xinjiang, and a fight for influence abroad.
Notably, under the purview, the senior administration official said, was the White House’s focus on bolstering supply chains for essential minerals, medical equipment, semiconductors and other technologies, and an executive order the president signed in February to help determine whether these sectors rely too much on foreign suppliers, such as China.
During direct talks with Beijing last month in Anchorage, Alaska, tensions were laid bare as both sides publicly jousted, attacking the other’s policies.
At the time, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said China’s “defensive response” was to be expected after Washington raised allegations of human rights abuses in Xinjiang, Hong Kong, and Tibet, pressure on Taiwan, and cyberattacks.
Blinken told his Senate confirmation hearing in January that he viewed China as the most significant challenge to the United States and said he backed outgoing Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s view that Beijing was committing genocide against its Uyghur minority in Xinjiang, a charge China denies.
Asked how he intended to respond to the issue if confirmed, Blinken said:
“I think we should be looking at making sure that we are not importing products that are made with forced labor from Xinjiang … We need to make sure that we’re also not exporting technologies and tools that could be used to further their repression. That’s one place to start.”
The White House pointed to the fractious exchange in Alaska when asked about Blinken’s pledge to keep imports from China’s Xinjiang away from U.S. stores during a call with reporters on Tuesday.
“We are not going to shy away from hard topics and addressing them directly with China, nor, by the way, are we going to shy away from taking meaningful actions, including in the sanctions space and other steps when it comes to gross violations of human rights such as those that are occurring in Xinjiang, which we’ve obviously said, amounts to genocide,” the official said.
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While former President Donald Trump, too, had pushed U.S. sanctions and export control restrictions citing human rights abuses in Xinjiang while in office, distinguishing Biden’s effort was a drive “to bring partners and allies along with us,” the official said.
Evidence of that was on display in March, when the U.S., European Union, United Kingdom, and Canada imposed coordinated sanctions on Beijing, citing Xinjiang abuses.
